[wsfii-discuss] olpc presentation

Thu Jan 5 15:27:59 UTC 2006

On Thu, Jan 05, 2006 at 02:48:14PM +0000, Paula wrote:
> Poverty tends to be experienced as an endless struggle against a sea of
> obstacles and wealth reduces resistance (you can "throw money" at
> problems and get someone else to shovel the shit for you), so naturally
> the wealthy don't consider themselves oppressed/unfree whilst the poor
> usually do.
> 
> I know people who've "made it" from poor backgrounds who work with
> commitment for the advancement of all whilst others "pull up the
> ladder", adapt to the most right-wing middle-class values and start
> berating their former communities for failure and moral delinqunecy.
> It's worth noting that the consensus of African-American political
> lobbies in the USA, for example, has drifted away from the left as the
> black middle-class expands and the first few black millionaires have
> created themselves. An American journalist cynically remarked, during
> the rise of Jessie Jackson's radical democrat platform, that "Jessie
> Jackson will not change politics, politics will change Jessie Jackson".
> This is inevitably true, but I'd still rather Jessie Jackson's ilk was
> in power than the current crew.
> 
> Either poor or wealthy people may or may not be idealistic. Either may
> dream of a different world of individual and community development,
> dignity and progress -- or indulge halfwit fantasies of owning some
> shiny car they can drive into their swimming pool next time their
> judgment is trashed on Bolly and Charlie. These dreams will still be
> influenced by local conditions, though -- for most people, even dreams
> require some degree of credibility for their glamour to "bite".  You
> only have to do a headcount of the number of black people who've got
> shiny cars via science and technology vs narcotics industry . . . you
> don't need much education to perform *that* feat.
> 
> Power corrupts, but wealth is relative. Even I'm wealthy in comparison
> with 9 out of 10 people I met on a recent trip to Morocco. At least I
> can get my teeth fixed, a hot bath whenever I want, and my very own
> laptop. I don't do my laundry up to my knees in a chilly river. But what
> tends to happen is that everyone naturalises and universalises their own
> response to their own conditions and has difficulty extending themselves
> beyond their own experience except in a picturesque way. I lost count of
> the number of backpackers who informed me that the "Biblical" culture of
> Morocco was thoroughly charming. Personally, I would not be at all
> charmed by thrashing my laundry in a river and being unable to afford
> even an aspirin for the pain in my decaying teeth. As far as Moroccan
> opinion on the problem goes, this ranged from blaming USA/EU and
> evacuating any responsibilty on the part of Moroccans themselves to
> shrewd complaints that people who, for example, ran the extremely
> profitable private bus companies, screwed all the money out as profit
> and didn't invest in developing infrastructure, partly because there's
> sod-all faith in the national context. The EU plans to spend a ton of
> money developing the beach fronts for tourism whilst what most Moroccans
> want is fairer agricultural trade and industrial infrastructural
> development. Frankly, I'm not at all sure I'd give kids in Tanja laptops
> and expect them to stay in the same hands for long. It might work OK in
> a village, if properly supervised by local community groups. Though I've
> got a feeling that even then they might well be commandeered to more
> pressing adult needs.  It's very hard to get a real sense of what's
> practicable or desirable through the lense of one's own desires and
> disappointments from my own relation to a different cultural context.
> 
> Neither wealth not poverty confer absolute morality and neither state is
> homogenous. Cheap laptops may work in stable situations (of poverty or
> not) where education is valued by the community as a whole and
> opportunities available for the educated to take up. Unstable urban
> environments where populations are shifting and expanding rapidly, where
> education is not respected because it's  widely perceived *not* to
> provide significant opportunities -- for example because unemployment is
> above 50% with jobs reserved, effectively, for the kids of the existing
> wealthy classes, where crime as the most profitable and respected career
> structure and there are very immediate and pressing economic needs to be
> addressed -- then *relatively* cheap laptops may be ineffective or only
> increase problems.
> 
> Each situtation needs to be assessed and addressed individually and
> defined by local communities to address their own needs. I agree that
> involving kids in engineering tasks which will immediately benefit their
> communities will often be the best way to provide effective training as
> well as localised solutions to well-understood problems.

The natural spectrum of engineering task difficulties on an user
controlled technology project can provide a ramp up to start this
process.

First start with cutting out templates from tin with scissors. When you
master this, you can drill holes according to templates on a drill.
When you master this, you can put components into holes according to
lists and solder them down. When you master this you can buy a cheap
multimeter and perform voltage checks on the freshly assembled devices.

Investment necessary:
---------------------
1 sheet of tin-plated tin from scrap metal yard or 1 IKEA box
1 tin scissor
1 visit to a web cafe where you can print

Note: the usual multi-billion assembly line is *not* required in this
particular UCT case :D

CL<